


the last night

by ollyalexander



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Crying, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mutual Pining, Spoilers for S4, based on s4, ish, kind of my take on another reason keith may have left??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ollyalexander/pseuds/ollyalexander
Summary: “—I can’t fight a war against myself, too. My hands are kind of full with the one we’re dealing with right now.”Or, Keith is leaving soon. Lance doesn't know what to do.





	the last night

Keith’s hands shake as he pulls his jacket off. And he can hear Lance, making his quiet way to his door like he’d promised he would, because— _ there’s something I need to tell you _ . That’s the reason he gave.    
  
And as if  _ that  _ isn’t enough to lurch terror into anyone’s stomach, he’d sent Keith this look, eyebrows drawn and eyes downcast, sending flashes of cold down Keith’s arm where his hand touched. Like he was delivering a death date—or an execution date, that’s more likely. Because nobody’s exploded at Keith yet for his decision.   
  
His decision. It hangs in the air, the dark cloud over his head, breaking apart to fill his room in the Castle. He thought Allura would, honestly—or Pidge, who he’s gotten mad at before for just  _ thinking  _ about leaving Voltron. He takes a shaky breath and drops the jacket on the bed, dropping his face in his hands but staying up, because there’s nobody to see him cry yet, Lance isn’t here yet, he will be soon, but for now—   
  
“Hi,” He hears, and it’s softer than what he expected. Keith hiccups embarrassingly and takes a moment to compose himself, then turns to Lance, elbows cupped in his opposing hands. He’s not wearing his jacket, and his face is wet. Keith turns his eyes away. “Hey.”   
  
“Can I come in?” He asks quietly, voice so unlike what Keith is used to. He nods, motioning aimlessly with his hand. “Yeah, just—you can sit anywhere.”   
  
“Right, okay,” Lance says, looking around like he’s in pain and finally choosing a seat on the edge of Keith’s bed. There’s a split second of silence where he hooks his ankles around each other, and then he speaks, his voice high: “So… tomorrow morning?”   
  
“Yeah,” Keith says, clearing his throat. “Kolivan’s coming up early, around six, and I’m just, uh, gonna say goodbye to you guys, I guess.”   
  
“Oh,” Lance says, twisting his fingers around each other, “I’ll set my alarm, then.”    
  
“Okay,” Keith replies, and it’s so awkward he can’t stand it, so he bursts without thinking: “What did you want to talk about?”   
  
Lance’s cheeks dust over with color, and he tucks his legs up, resting his chin on his knees, trapping his legs in with his arms. “It… uh… well, I don’t really know how to start—it’s kind of a long story.”   
  
“Seems like the type of thing you’d plan out before coming to talk to me,” Keith says, with a breathy laugh, swiping his jacket away from Lance’s chair and draping it over the chair to his left, resting his hand on it. “Start from the beginning.”   
  
“Right,” Lance says. He looks flustered. Like Keith’s said more than two sentences to him. He clears his throat again, fingers running through his hair, a nervous tic Keith thinks he’s picked up from Pidge. “I guess it started at the Garrison.”   
  
“Oh,” Keith says, “So a  _ really  _ long story.”   
  
“I’ll summarize it for you, if you wish, princess,” Lance says with his old humor and a head tilt, but Serious Lance is back in an instant. And it makes Keith’s skin prickle, at how  _ real  _ this entire situation is. Lance has had his opportunities to make fun of Keith for leaving—call him out or something. Roll his eyes, even if it’s just a little. But all he’s done is look sad and drawl his way to oblivion. “But… I… when we were at the Garrison, there was this pilot there who I fucking  _ hated _ .”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
“Yeah. Not you, though, don’t be so conceited.” And Keith frowns, but maybe it’s part of the act—because Lance likes putting on a show, and this is his last opportunity to in front of Keith. (That’s all it looks like Lance wants sometimes. His attention.) “He was Iverson’s favorite, it was obvious, had a bright future in front of him. And then his best friend was presumed dead and he shut down.”   
  
“Sounds familiar,” Keith says, pulling his hand away from the chair, but Lance quirks an eyebrow up at him and motions his finger down, making Keith slink back into his position. “Shut up. It’s storytime. And then, he did what everyone expected but didn’t really, deep down—he fucked up. And I was glad I’d never see him again, but there was this nagging  _ thing _ —this feeling of that  _ I _ had fucked up, being glad he was gone. So I took his position and was happy and la dee da and then there was Blue’s whole shebang, and suddenly you’re relevant to the plot.”   
  
“Right.”   
  
“Right, so I’m told I have to spend all of my time for the next year of my life not only in space, but with some fucker I didn’t even like, my best friends, and my mentor. It was kind of a win-lose, don’t you think?”   
  
“This is your story,” Keith says, grinning a little when Lance rolls his eyes. He hasn’t lost him yet. There’s still a part of him gripping Lance by the wrist, begging, hoping, praying that neither of them will let go. “But sure. It was.”   
  
“Right, so Voltron, whatever, and I have, like,  _ no  _ time to talk to Hunk and/or Pidge,” Lance continues, “But I was spending time with them. Not the time I’d prefer to be spending, but that was something. And then there were only  _ some  _ brief seconds of non-Voltron conversation. But, y’know, that meant spending time with  _ you  _ and it was just getting harder and harder until the only thing I could talk about with Hunk and Pidge was how fucking annoying you were and your stupid hair and how you looked piloting Red and how you sounded over the coms and how you looked with your bayard—”   
  
“This doesn’t sound like it’s working out in my favor,” Keith adds, sotto voce, and Lance justs makes an incomprehensible gesture with his hand and grits his jaw, continuing like Keith had said nothing. “—So I’m like, what the fuck do I do, and Hunk says, wow, this sounds really similar to that little problem with the fighter pilot at the Garrison, and then Pidge says, wow, the person you’re telling this story to knows that they’re the person in both situations, you can stop being so annoying and dramatic now. Tada! Telling you you’re not the guy from the Garrison was just for the effect. Did it work?”   
  
“Honestly?”   
  
“No, Keith, lie to me.”   
  
“Well, if that’s what you want, it worked.”   
  
Lance drops his feet, tapping his foot irritably at Keith, then continuing. “So I ask what it all means. It takes a while, but I get there eventually: yeah, I had a crush on the fighter pilot at the Garrison, but what about you? If they’re the same person—you know, this sounded better in my head—what I’m saying is, I’m kind of in love with you, I think. As close to in love with you as I can get without making an idiot of myself.”    
  
It’s a pain in the gut. Deep and twisting and primal, like it’s been planted long ago but it’s only bloomed now, when Lance is looking at him like this with his confidence rising and falling as words pour out of his mouth without meaning, hands nervous and twitchy and Adam’s apple gulping and Keith is thinking  _ someone put him up to this _ and then  _ who have I told? Only Shiro. But he said I should go—everyone seemed okay with it, were they lying? _ __  
_  
_ __ Who was lying? Who knew? Did he—

“Yo, listen,” Lance says, snapping him out of his trance. “Not to be that bitch, but I’ve kind of confessed my love for you and you haven’t said anything for a solid twenty seconds, so I’m getting kind of worried.”   
  
“Right,” Keith says, his voice strange. He coughs into his fist and finally steps away from the chair, his knuckles white. “Who told you?”   
  
Lance looks confused. “I mean—technically, Hunk and Pidge, but I kind of figured it out for myself. Were you listening?”   
  
“No, Lance,” He says, frustrated. “About  _ me  _ being in love with  _ you _ . Is this, like, some sick fucking joke? Someone’s last chance to make me look like an idiot?  _ Your  _ last chance?”   
  
“What? No, never,” Lance says, words rushing together. He stands, hand upturned helplessly in Keith’s general direction, where his single small step has turned into annoyed pacing. “Keith, come on. We’re not that—”   
  
“Come on, just tell me!” Keith snaps. “I’m used to people not liking me, you know. And you owe me after being in on the joke.” And the feeling in his gut finally has a name: betrayal. They were getting somewhere, to a good place, where Keith could look at him without reason and smile at his jokes—and now Lance has fucked it all up for what, a dare or something?   
  
“Keith—Keith,  _ no _ ,” Lance says. “Come on. You really think—it’s your last day, man. And you’ve been our leader since Shiro disappeared—we all owe you. You know the team—we’re family. You really think—”   
  
“But it just—” Keith squeezes his eyes shut and wonders why Lance has to be so good a person, to latch onto that instead of Keith being in love with him. And his voice sounds so real. So believable. But he’s never had a miracle before. “Seems too good to be…”   
  
There are gentle footsteps in front of him. And then he opens his eyes and there’s Lance’s sneakers, and then there’s Keith’s pale, banged up hands in front of him, and then Lance’s, soft and tan, encasing his fingers. He’s cold but his hands are so, so alive. “I know,” He whispers. “Seemed like it for me, too.”   
  
“Stop doing that,” Keith says tightly.  _ Don’t cry now. Don’t. You have him right where you want him, where he can see who you wish you were. _ “You don’t. You can’t.”   
  
“But I do,” He says. “I  _ do _ . I can.”   
  
And then there’s cold on his face, and Lance’s pointer finger draws across the tear streak on Keith’s cheek idly, and he kisses him, and it doesn’t feel like home, not really—because it’s a different type of home. It’s not Texas or the Garrison or the Marmora knife he has in his pack—it’s Voltron. It’s what he’s leaving behind.    
  
Lance’s mouth is cold like the rest of him and Keith tries to warm him up, spills honey down his throat, feels the warm fingers of one hand in his hair, blunt nails scratching against his scalp, and then there’s the sharp angles of Lance’s back under his hands, the cotton of his shirt and the breeze of his skin hidden underneath it, his hipbone defined and—then there’s nothing. Lance’s mouth moves away.   
  
“Don’t go,” He says.    
  
Oh.   
  
——   
  
It feels like days, since he’s kissed Keith. He can still feel the cold on his cheeks and the cold in his mouth like it’s giving his tongue frostbite because he thought he fucked everything up and then he remembers kissing Keith back and his mouth heats up, but they’re—well, they’re not fighting, but they’re not kissing anymore either. Lance prefers the latter.    
  
He can’t let Keith go now. He can’t. He’s lost him enough—more than once. There has to be a fucking limit on how many times Keith can slip through his fingers, you know? Like now: “I thought you  _ liked  _ me—”   
  
“Yeah, sorry, correction, I’m in love with you,” Lance interrupts. “There’s a bit of a difference. And I know, it sucks. Especially when I was hoping for time.”   
  
“And I’ll give us time,” Keith says, making Lance’s heart soar, “When I get back. When I finish with the Blade.”   
  
“Do you really think,” Lance says quietly, “You have more of an opportunity winning with them than with us? We have the same goal. Do you just think they’re—better?”   
  
“It’s… partly that,” Keith says, voice hinging on uncomfortable, “But it’s—Shiro’s back.”   
  
“I’ve noticed.”   
  
“And I was never fit to pilot Black, we all knew that. So it’s good, that he’s back. But when Allura piloted Blue so easily, I realized—it couldn’t be temporary. You knew it as well as I did, remember? And then when you bonded with Red—”   
  
And it dawns on him. “Keith,” Lance says, standing. “Keith, you can’t be serious—”   
  
“Why not?” He asks, voice cracking, turning away from Lance without meaning to, which is usually telltale that he’s on the verge of tears. “There can’t just be—this fucking—odd one out on a team. That’s not how it works. All or nothing, you know?”   
  
“Yeah, actually,” Lance says, and tries to touch him but Keith jerks away the same way you would if someone were too cold to touch. “”Cause that’s how we were before Shiro left. You don’t remember?”   
  
Keith mumbles something he doesn’t hear, and Lance takes the opportunity to run his fingers through his hair. “What?”   
  
“My future doesn’t lie here,” He repeats, louder, and Lance’s hand pauses. And he can’t name whatever crushes his heart in half. The realization. The dull ache of acceptance. “I’m half Galra—”   
  
“Keith—”   
  
“—And it just makes more sense,” Keith says, like it’s something he has to repeat in order to convince himself. “Because there’s just this— _ part _ of me that’s been hidden from me all my life and when I find it it’s apparently the thing I’m supposed to be fighting, and I can’t just keep doing that, Lance—”   
  
“—Keith—”   
  
“—I can’t fight a war against myself, too. My hands are kind of full with the one we’re dealing with right now.”     
  
“ _ Keith _ .”   
  
“Fine!” He snaps. “Fucking tell me I should stay again, after I’ve—”   
  
“Actually,” Lance says gently, “I was going to say that—you shouldn’t.”   
  
Keith is rendered speechless. He stares at Lance, mouth slightly dropped, the tips of his top row of teeth exposed. Lance’s free hand runs over his cheek, stopping to run his thumb across his bottom lip. “I don’t get it all,” He says, “But I understand some. And I shouldn’t keep you from what you think is right because I’m selfish. I’m sorry.”   
  
Keith takes a moment to compose himself, but then he talks. “You’re not selfish,” He says quietly, and there’s weight on Lance’s hips, the outline of his fingers. “You’re just… in love.”   
  
“Same thing,” Lance mutters, and then Keith’s eyes shimmer a little and he says, “It’s not—it’s  _ not _ , Lance,” And they’re kissing again, and it’s too good, too good to be true this time. Definitely too good, because his tongue tastes bittersweet this time and Lance’s mouth falters when Keith pushes forward a little bit, towards the bed.   
  
“Wait,” He finds himself saying, and Keith’s rushing forward with a steady stream of apologies: “Fuck, sorry, I should have realized, I’m sorry, I’m overbearing, I didn’t mean—”   
  
The only thing that shuts him up is kissing him. “No offense, babe, but shut up,” Lance says, and Keith’s eyebrows dart up immediately. “Listen, I want to—I  _ really  _ want to—but losing you is like—”   
  
“You won’t,” Keith says. His grip on Lance’s hips tightens. “You won’t. Me leaving doesn’t mean—”   
  
“But it  _ does _ ,” Lance stresses. “What are you suggesting, long distance or some shit? Come on. You know it wouldn’t work.”   
  
“But when I come back?”   
  
And he considers it, because he’d forgotten that Keith will come back, has to. This is as good of a home as Earth now. “When you come back… well, maybe. Probably. I’m not fucking letting you go  _ again _ , are you kidding me?”   
Keith laughs breathily. His fingers play on the rim of Lance’s jeans. “I love you,” Lance says, wondering about the next time he’ll get to say that to him.    
  
“Good.”   
  
“Good.”   
  
And then Keith’s mouth traps him in again, and Lance feels his jaw moving under his fingers, and he finally complies to the shoving and pushing until Keith’s on top of him, lifting one of Lance’s legs to wrap around his waist. He pulls away again, resting their foreheads together.   
  
“I love you too,” He says.   
  
And for tonight, it’s home.     
  
——    
  
They wake in the night. Both of them.   
  
Lance almost falls off the bed when he sees Keith staring at him, and he knows he has an eerie smile on his face that has Lance instantly clutching the nearest stable thing—which is, of course, Keith’s arm and the rim of the bed. “Dude, what the hell!” He bursts. “How long have you been staring at me?”   
  
“First of all, don’t  _ dude  _ me right now,” Keith says, grin lopsided. “And second, not as long as you’d think. You’re just really pretty.”   
  
He relaxes in Keith’s arms. “Really what a guy wants to hear first thing waking up in the middle of the night.” He phrases it like a joke, but his blush says otherwise. “What time is it?”   
  
“Don’t care,” Keith mumbles, head leaning down to plant a kiss on Lance’s forehead. Things he’ll miss: all of this, and more. “Listen, I’ve been thinking—”   
  
“Uh oh.”   
  
“ _ And _ , I just—didn’t want to let you forget about me, so—I’m gonna leave you my jacket.”   
  
Lance opens his eyes so wide, he’s like a woodland animal in the dark. “You think I’d forget about you?” He asks incredulously. Keith kisses the places on his face where the darkness doesn’t touch as much. “Keith, seriously? That jacket is, like, your branding.”    
  
“Can you let me do this one thing?”   
  
“No,” Lance says, and then: “I can let you do  _ another thing _ , though.”   
  
“It’s two in the morning.”   
  
“You said you didn’t know the time!”   
  
Keith wishes he’d kissed him sooner.   
  
——   
  
When he wakes, there’s nobody next to him.    
  
There’s a delicious feeling in his gut, though, the type that’s telling him everything will be okay. He yawns and stretches out, wishing his heat source were here, but then the entire world crashes down on the Castleship and he sits straight up, perking his ears for noise.   
  
No commotion. No noise. No early morning clammer. No alarm clock going off.   
  
And Keith is gone.    
  
Instantly, he’s jumping out of bed, grabbing the closest items of clothing he has in possession, shoving his feet in his shoes, and looking around desperately for a jacket, any jacket. And then, of course, he sees the inviting sheen of red: and the vague yellow sticky note on it.    
  
_ please? _ __  
_ i love you.  _ __  
_ keith  _ __  
__  
And his stomach twists and he almost crushes the sticky note and wonders how he probably had to find Allura at four in the morning to write it and then his throat closes up and he’s crying, Lance is crying, this strange hiccup into Keith’s jacket, and then he clears his throat when he thinks he’s done and he slips it on, basks in Keith’s scent, the same one that’s left lingering on his skin, where Keith’s hands were, only a few hours ago. Keith’s scent doubled.    


He should go now.   
  
The team will be mad, no doubt about that. Hunk will give him a ‘not cool, man’ if he’s not too busy crying, Shiro and Allura will try the lecture approach, and Pidge will probably give him the silent treatment for a few weeks. And he wonders why Keith didn’t wake him up, and he doesn’t know how to feel about the goodbye.   
  
Maybe he’ll just walk in in this jacket. Would Keith let that happen? He pulls it tighter against himself, already feeling his ghost circling around the room, hot where he’s cold. It’s his choice now— _ for _ now.    
  
Things he’ll miss: this smell, unmistakably Keith; this jacket on him, because Keith is broader in the shoulders than he is and it’s sagging; and probably his room, because to hell if he’s not going to sleep in Keith’s until he’s back. He brings the arm to his nose again.    
  
“I love you,” He says aloud, to any trace of Keith that’s still in this room. And for tonight, it’s home.    


**Author's Note:**

> hmu if u wanna complain about s4 lmao!!


End file.
